“Remember how I found you there
Alone in your electric chair
I told you dirty jokes until you smiled
You were lonely for a man
I said take me as I am
‘Cause you might enjoy some madness for a while”
– Billy Joel
It occurred to me that times and people change. In dictionaries of the late 1800s, “alienation” was defined as a mental affliction. Today, it is normal. What if any madness that does not prevent reproduction is actually a mental set and behavioral pattern that evolved because it enabled humans to survive? Maybe, when conditions require madness, we humans rise to the occasion.
Imagine, if you will, an anthology of stories about different madnesses wherein the insanity enabeled people to survive. Obvious plots include extreme sacrifice – deliberately dying to save others or murder of innocents to save other innocents, for example. But the premise is that insane behavior can be shown to benefit survival of our species. A deadly airborne virus that dies in the tar-laden lungs of heavy smokers comes to mind. Or, invasion of an alien race that eats only the brains of non-alcohoics.
Of course, it could be simply stories about those who succeed where others fail because they try what none of us sane folk would think of. I’m sensing a fun anthology here. And, a social service. We’ll be saying that crazy people can be necessary. “I know he’s crazy. But, who else would try it?”
Anybody interested? Tom Wolosz has offered to put together Volume Four of The Rabbit Hole. He asked for theme suggestions and this is one. What do you think of a new volume?
WRITERS CO-OP: A WRITER COMMUNITY FOR YOU. 